Scott Sigler - Nocturnal - A Novel

She was old, but she looked sharp. She looked sane , and that was what Bryan desperately needed to believe.

Pookie and Tiffany sat next to each other on a plastic-covered couch. Bryan stood by, looking out the living room window to Geary Street below — and across the street, to the van where Jay Parlar had died. Bryan’s sour stomach threatened to twist him in knots. His head swam so bad he had to keep a hand on the wall to stop from swaying. It was usually best to let Pookie do the talking; now, it was a necessity.

“Just take it from the beginning, ma’am,” Pookie said.

“I already told the other man, the one with the uniform,” Tiffany said. “You don’t have a uniform. And I might add it’s time for you to get a new jacket, young man. The one you’re wearing probably stopped fitting you twenty pounds ago.”

Pookie smiled. “I’m a homicide inspector, ma’am. We don’t wear uniforms. But I still eat lots of donuts, as you can tell.”

She smiled. It was a genuine smile, although halfhearted and a bit empty. What she had seen affected her to the core. “Fine, I’ll tell you. But this is the last time.”

Pookie nodded.

“As you can see, my window looks out on Geary. I look out on the street a lot. I like to watch people go by and imagine what their stories are.”

Outside the window, morning sunlight was just beginning to hit the blacktop. This woman had really been staring out the window at such a convenient time? Bryan wanted Pookie to get to the point, get to the part with the snake-face , but Pookie had his own way of doing things and Bryan had to be patient.

“At three in the morning?” Pookie said. “Kind of late for people watching, isn’t it?”

“I don’t sleep well,” Tiffany said. “Thoughts of mortality, you see. Of how everything is just going to … end . Don’t worry, young man, if you aren’t thinking about it already, you will soon enough.”

Pookie nodded. “Thoughts of mortality come with my job. Please continue.”

Tiffany did. “So I’m looking out the window, and I see this young man across the street, wearing a crimson jacket. I’ve seen him before. He and three other boys wander the streets at all hours. I recognize them because they all wear the same colors — crimson, white and gold. But tonight, it was just the one boy.”

Pookie made a few notes on his pad.

“The boy was walking fast,” Tiffany said. “That’s what caught my attention. He kept looking behind him, like he thought someone was following him, perhaps. Then the bums dropped down.”

Bryan turned away from the window. Dropped down?

“Dropped down,” Pookie said, echoing Bryan’s thoughts. “You said bums dropped down ? Dropped down from where?”

Tiffany shrugged. “From the roof of that apartment building across the street, I imagine. It was like they … like they fell, from windowsill to windowsill. But not an accident. On purpose.”

“I see,” Pookie said. “And you got a good look at them?”

She shrugged again. “As good as I could, considering the light and how fast they moved. They dropped down, grabbed him, then went up again.”

Pookie scribbled. “And how did they go up? Fire escape?”

She shook her head and stared off to some spot in the room. “They went up the same way they came down. Window to window. I’ve never seen people jump that high. It wasn’t as if they stuck to the walls like Spider-Man, mind you — it was more like watching a squirrel scramble up an oak tree. They went up four stories so fast I couldn’t believe it.”

Bryan looked to the building across the street and tried to visualize what she had seen. Even if someone could climb from windowsill to windowsill, some acrobat or whatever, no one could climb those four stories with any kind of speed.

Pookie nodded and wrote, as if hearing about someone scrambling up the side of a building were an everyday occurrence. “That’s fine,” he said. “And could you describe the men, please?”

Tiffany cleared her throat again. “They were big, maybe a foot taller than the boy. Maybe even more. They both had these dirty blankets draped over their shoulders.”

“You called them bums?” Pookie said.

“That was my first reaction,” Tiffany said. “I mean, if I saw those men on the street, all bundled up like that, I probably wouldn’t even notice them. You see people like that all the time, the poor souls. But these men … well, the blankets seemed to … to loosen up, maybe. The blankets slid away from their faces a little.” She stared off to a corner of the room. She continued in a barely audible whisper. “That’s when I saw the one with green skin and a pointy face. Like a snake. The other one” — Tiffany mimed pulling at her nose, pulling it out a foot from her face — “had a long snoot, and it looked like he had brown hair all over it. I also saw he had brown legs, covered in hair, the same as his face.”

Bryan breathed slowly. Dirty blankets, just like in his dream. And brown hair. Like the brown hair Sammy Berzon had found on the blanket covering Oscar Woody’s corpse. If she had actually seen this, then maybe he wasn’t crazy after all.

“Oh,” she said. “There was one more thing. The one with the brown legs was wearing Bermuda shorts.”

“Bermuda shorts,” Pookie said, writing it down in his notebook. “The one that looked like a werewolf was wearing Bermuda shorts?”

Tiffany tilted her head and narrowed her eyes. “I never said werewolf . I only got a glimpse when he grabbed the boy, when the blanket loosened up a little. The big snoot … it was like a dog’s, but the jaws didn’t line up right. He had a long tongue that hung off one side. People …” she stopped, looked down to her carpet, the fear now totally in control of her face and voice “… people don’t look like that.”

“Then what happened?”

She licked her lips. Her hands were shaking. “Then I didn’t see anything for a bit. Then there was this fireball from up on the roof. I saw the boy engulfed in it.”

“Did you see what caused the fireball?”

She shook her head. “No, it was too bright. I only saw the boy because he was silhouetted. Then he was burning. There were others on the roof, in the blankets. The boy … he was still on fire and he … he jumped . Whatever was up there with him, he chose to kill himself rather than face it.”

Pookie lowered the notepad. “Ma’am, this has been very helpful. Would you mind if a sketch artist came over?”

She shook her head violently, instantly. “As soon as you boys leave, I’m not talking about this again. Ever.”

“But this could be helpful to our—”

“Leave,” she said. “I did my part.”

The front door opened, and they all turned to look. No knock, no buzzer, just Rich Verde storming in, resplendent in a dark-purple suit. Where the hell did that guy shop? Behind Verde walked Bobby Pigeon, and behind Bobby came Officer Stuart Hood. Hood had a look on his face like he’d just been reamed out good and proper.

“Chang,” Verde said. “What are you doing here?”

Pookie smiled wide. Despite the horrible circumstances, Bryan knew Pookie wouldn’t pass up a chance to get under Verde’s skin.

“Just interviewing the witness,” Pookie said. “On account of how we were here first because you were probably getting your sleepy time.”

Rich glared at him, then walked up to Tiffany. He flashed a smile as fake as the fabric of his clothes.

“Ma’am, I’m Inspector Richard Verde. I’d like to ask you a few questions about what you saw tonight.”

Tiffany sighed and shook her head. “Please leave my home.”